A03

• S: Real-life application?


  • The research has led to important practical uses for police officers and investigators, important because the consequences of inaccurate EWT can be very serious
  • Loftus (75) claimed that leading questions can have such a distorting influence on memory that police officers need to be careful about how they phrase questions when interviewing eyewitnesses
  • Research into EWT is one are where psychs can make an important difference to the lives of real people e.g. by improving how the legal system works
• L: use of artificial materials?

  • Ps watched film clips of accidents, a very different experience from witnessing a real accident
  • Yuille and Cutshall (86) found that witnesses of a traumatic real armed robbery had very accurate recall after 4 months
  • This shows that using artificial tasks tells us little about how leading questions affect EWT in real crimes or accidents
• L: Individual differences in accuracy of EWT?

  • Anastasi and Rhodes (06) found that older people were less accurate than younger people when giving eyewitness reports
  • However they also found that all age groups were more accurate when identifying people of their own age group
  • Research studies often use younger people as the target to identify, so some age groups may seem less accurate but this isn't really the case
• L: Lab studies of EWT suffer from demand characteristics?

  • Research Ps usually want to be helpful and attentive so when they're asked a question and don't know the answer they guess
  • Ps might be asked 'Did you see the blue car?', even if there was not a blue car in the film, Ps may reply 'yes' because it seems a more helpful answer
  • This challenges the validity of EWT research, studies intend to measure the accuracy of eyewitness memory but the answers eyewitnesses give may not actually reflect their memories
• L: Many EWT research studies lack external validity?

  • Foster et al (94) argue that what you remember as an eyewitness can have important consequences in the real world, but the same isn't true in research studies
  • Real eyewitnesses search their memory with more effort because their testimony may lead to a successful conviction or wrongful if inaccurate - this isn't true in research studies
  • Therefore EWT accuracy may be greater in the real world because of the seriousness with which eyewitnesses undertake their role